Wild Plum, by Jane Hirshfield

A gray squirrel tests each plum with his nose,

moving from one to another

until he feasts.

It is like watching the ego,

moving from story to story.

A man is proud of his strong brown teeth,

though all his children have died.

This tree the one he was given,

its small, sustaining fruit, some green, some yellow.

Pits drop to the ground,

a little moistness clings in the scorings.

The left-behind branches

winch themselves silently upward,

as if released from long sorrow.

It’s amazing what one will find while packing up to move!  I had the fortune of stumbling across a piece of a Time Warner Cable bill upon which my college bestie composed a number of haikus for me.  It’s at least five years old and the ink is barely readable, but I was able to draw on memory to reconstruct them.  Below is my favorite:

Meet my wife Tammy

She cleans the house and pops pills

More potatoes, dear?

Hipsters Wanted

Publication or Company	Pavone
Industry	Advertising Agency
Benefits	Dental, Health
Job Duration	Full Time
Job Location	Harrisburg, PA
Experience Level	5 years
Job Requirements	We’re Pavone, a Central PA multi-channel branding firm, meaning we’re outside New York and DC so we don’t have Hipsters. All we have is an office with major clients, real opportunities and easy commutes.Hipsters with proven Dumbo experience preferred. Fixies and full sleeves a plus. Minimum two years’ mustache and/or bangs experience. Should be fluent in sarcasm and upper-middle-class terminology. Truth be told, we already have mustaches and fixies and irony, but none of us are actual Hipsters. Then again, Hipsters never admit they’re Hipsters. Either way we need a few according to our new biz guy, who’s been leading us to lots of wins, so he’s getting what he wants apparently. PM your link and salary reqs to @PavoneFood or jportzline@pavone.net
About Our Company	Pavone is an integrated advertising agency specializing in food and beverage marketing. Pavone works with national and international clientele including StarKist, Turkey Hill Dairy, Campbell’s Soup Company, The Hershey Company, D.G. Yuengling & Son, Fulton Financial Corporation and Mount Nittany Medical Center.
via Mediabistro.com

Lacenaire’s Hand

Words of eloquence have been lost.

(Rene Char)

I watched the most heartwarming film a girl could ask to see on her birthday: Praying with Lior, a documentary about a young boy with Down Syndrome preparing for his bar mitzvah.  Lior Liebling davens with such joy and dedication that others in his synagogue––adult congregants––are often in awe of him.  But his father, who is a rabbi, wisely says at one point that he worries that others will project too much onto Lior.  “He’s not a rebbe, he’s just a kid.”  (Something to that effect.)  And while I don’t like the idea of equating disability or difference with spiritual elevation, I do think that in the case of Lior, his older brother (and “best friend”) was correct when he said, “If anyone is close to G-d, Lior is.”

Here is Lior’s confirmation speech, which he gave when he finished his formal Jewish education (some editing done):

“Shabbat Shalom, I am very happy to be here today.

“I am happy that I get to be confirmed. Being Jewish is important to me because that is the way I stay connected to God. Davening is the way I stay connected to God. As I said at my bar mitzvah, I love davening because I feel happy and excited. It makes a difference to pray because I feel different when I talk to God. When I do not talk to God I feel lonely. If I talk to God, I feel happy and I can enjoy myself. Sometimes I use words from the prayer book. Other times I use my own words. There are so many things to be grateful for. I am thankful for my family and for the things I have in my life.

“I enjoy the holidays because we get to celebrate and to sing a lot. I especially like Sukkoth because of eating in the sukkah and the celebration of Simhat Torah….

“This week is the parsha of bersheit. It is the parsha about the creation of the world. We learn that everyone is created in God’s image. That makes everybody equal — even if we have different beliefs. There are different religions. There are Jews, Christians Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and others. Muslims, for example, celebrate Ramadan. Christians celebrate Christmas. Jews celebrate our own holidays. We can appreciate each other’s holidays. My family even went with Buddhists to celebrate the Dali Lama’s birthday when we were in India. We have different beliefs and religions, and we are all equal. We can all speak to God in different ways.

“Everybody is created in God’s image. Each person has different abilities and talents that we offer the world. We each have our own blessings that we bring to the community. I bring to Mishkan my love, drumming, enthusiasm for davening, talking to people and being friendly. I hope to bring these to Mishkan for many more years.”